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Since Luquos seems to be MIA, it's time for the next bonus week comic. For those of you new to the club, a bonus week is what happens at the end of the rotation and it's where we look at a comic that wouldn't normally work for the club for one reason or another. Since we're starting in the middle of the week, this one will be open till a week from Wednesday, but it's pretty short so it shouldn't take you long to read.

This week's "comic" is IF Only... it's a short spoof of old text adventure games by the guy who did A Modest Destiny. Since it's a text adventure comic, there's actually no graphics. Some basic knowledge of what a text adventure game is helps (and some experience playing them is even better), though isn't really neccessary to get most of the jokes. The word play is pretty funny regardless.

If you're not familiar with them, text adventures, or Interactive Fiction games, were really popular in the early days of the PC, before they were really strong enough to display much graphically. Everything was described in text and you'd control the game by typing commands such as "go west", "open door", "take key", "attack dragon". At which point the computer would often say that it didn't understand what you meant and you'd have to spend the next ten minutes trying different combinations of words until you stumbled upon the ones that were in the game's limited volcabulary. You also tended to die, a lot. The first, and one of the most famous text adventure games is Adventure, aka Colossal Cave, which can be found for free online if you're curious.

I liked this "comic". it's pretty funny and has some clever moments. There's got to be a trope out there describing the narrator. I don't really have any favorites, so... yeah, that's all I have to say.

Wow, I actually laughed out loud. Several times in fact. I wish I could actually find a text adventure game like that.

As those of you who read George the Fish know, I'm a fan of wordplay.

So I really, really like this comic.

Hahaha.... wow. This... yeah, it made me laugh out loud on several occassions. Great "comic". It needs no pictures.

One of the best lines has to be :

> FIRE REVOLVER

You sit the revolver down and explain in a calm voice that the company is downsizing. If it were up to you, things would be different, but it's not. This is a decision from higher up. You really are sorry, but unfortunately, (here you insert a dramatic pause) you are just going to have to let the revolver go.

That's a good one. I also really like:

>> TIE TWINE

It was a beautiful race. Neck and neck for a while there, but despite your best efforts, the twine won.

If I ever make a text adventure game, I'm so going to put in stuff like this. Not that there's all that much chance of me making a text adventure game, but there's no reason why I couldn't work some clever word play into a more graphical game...

When I first read this a while back, I thought the same thing Josiah. Although, since I have mostly worked in TI-83 basic language, the whole text based game idea wasn't so unlikely.
Great text based game parody. I won't repeat what everyone else has said.

Yeah... didn't get around to reading this sooner with Otakon and all that, and then I kinda forgot... but now I wish I had. I love that style of humor. They even made fun of spelling mistakes... "What you intended to type was "OPEN TABLE".

Also the "Ask troll" sequence was epic XD

Now that this has gotten a decent amount of comments, I'll be posting a new comic Wednesday. So, for the people who haven't commented on this one yet, you have until then to do so.

On another but still related note, this talk of text adventures has given me an idea. I'll be making a post in the New RP Discussion thread over in the OOC section momentarily that you guys might be interested in...

I'm pretty much gonna say "I agree with everyone else in this thread". No point in repeating whats already been said multiple times. ^_^ There's actually still text adventure games around, some have pictures, so their a bit upgraded.

I miss Ninja Warrior Ninja Ninja....

Sorry! With work and pre-season stuff I've not had much time to go on the computer. I did read the comic, but for some reason didn't respond.
I too believe that one of the best parts of the "comic" was the constant play on words. The odd digressions into the main characters life (stories about his girlfriend and such) I also found pretty funny.
Y'know, I was not around when text adventure games came out. The only experience I have with them is Dungeon Quest on Homestar Runner (ye cannot get ye flask!). Kind of reminded me of it too, with the narrator's sarcastic tone and all. Maybe Homestar Runner got the idea from this comic.
I'm thinking of maybe searching for the one Josiah mentioned was on the internet. Not that I'll have time to get to it until maybe fall .